The Pilo Family Circus Read Online Free PDF Page A

free, grunting at the nasty scraping pain. It was a rolled-up paper note.
    Bam, bam, bam. The spike being hammered into his head beat faster as he sat up. Next to hit him was the smell, an utterly putrid reek of old beer and garbage. He peeled his eyes open and saw his room had been redecorated. The wall had gaping holes of torn wood; it looked as though the clowns had been working at ripping some kind of pattern — there was the beginning of what may have been a smiley face — but the job must have proved beyond them. The bed was now a pile of ash with a few springs and wires sticking out. Someone had dragged the recycle bin in from outside and spread its month-old contents of smashed bottles over the floor.
    He stood up, swayed on his feet and sank back to his haunches. His eyes fell on the light switch; nails had been hammered into the wall around it from the other side, so their tips would jab any hands fumbling in the dark. He almost admired the effort the clowns had gone to.
    Over on his desk was something that made no sense: a vase of daisies, undamaged and as pretty as a picture in the middle of the carnage. And there, on the charred mess that was once his bed, was what looked to be a greeting card. He staggered over, shoes crunching broken glass, and picked it up. It wasin the shape of a red heart and said ‘For a Special Guy’. A kiss had been smudged on it with lipstick.
    Like a failing engine, his mind’s gears ground and squealed. Why these niceties amidst the ruin?
    He looked at his wardrobe, which was now empty. On top of it was a neatly folded pair of work clothes, ironed and pressed ready for his next shift at the club. On the rear panel of the wardrobe, someone had nailed a dead possum in a parody of crucifixion.
    Something wet dripped from the ceiling and splashed on his head. He brushed at the damp spot, headache thumping in time with his pulse. On the floor his outline was engraved in the broken glass and garbage. Next to it was the paper he’d pulled from his rectum. He unfolded the note and read the neat handwriting in gold ink.
    I dig the rolling pin gag. We could use that. We could use YOU, too. You have two days to pass your audition. You better pass it, feller. You’re joining the circus. Ain’t that the best news you ever got? The fuck it ain’t. You’re just lucky the new apprentice ain’t working out. I will kill that sonofabitch, you see if I don’t.
    Gonko, on behalf of Doopy, Goshy, Winston and Rufshod Clown division, Pilo Family Circus
    PS Steal from me again and I will cut your balls off.
    Jamie crumpled the note in his fist and dropped it to the floor, wondering what kind of sense it was supposed to make.
    According to the clock — which, somehow, was still working — he had an hour to get ready for his shift. Passing the downstairs toilet he saw the rest of his clothes had been stuffed into the bowl. Another wet drop slid through thefloorboards above and landed on his head. Again he wiped it away, almost without thinking, but it had brought a new smell which caught his attention. On the back of his hand was a brown streak across the knuckles. Baffled, he stared at the ceiling. Through the gaps in the floorboards above, sewage was trickling like melting snow.
    Jamie managed to walk calmly outside and run his head under the laundry tap before he keeled over and was silently sick.
     
    Upstairs, the house was the stuff of nightmares. It seemed the clowns had somehow rigged the plumbing to reverse and expunge everything that had been put down the tubes in recent memory. The mess had spread over the floor in the kitchen, bathroom and hallway, and was creeping gradually towards the bedrooms like a slowly rising tide.
    With the resilience of a postman, he made it to work. When he got to the club, other staff and a couple of the members asked him if he was all right. He told them he was fine as he stared 1,000 yards into the distance. After the 6pm rush of suits, he took two phone